Questions for Liberals #1. Is support for people who use rape as a weapon of war compatible with political correctness?

As I wander through gather these days I often find myself thinking how medieval and parochial the ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives are. No doubt many who wear those labels with pride would claim their political opponents the religious right are even more parochial and medieval.

Maybe the real religious right are but there are two point to consider here:

Not everybody who opposes the neo fascism of the progressive liberals is a Republican.

Not every Republican is a supporter of the religious right.

The conviction among progressive liberals that there are only two possible political positions rather proves my case about parochialism and medievalism and explains why so many of these lefties openly support medieval brutality.

When stumbling through Stumble Upon I chanced on this Washington Post headline, that made me think of how the liberals had cheered at the prospect ofÂ America supporting the Syrian rebels. The story was headlined:

Well I know that rape is a weapon of war, a weapon of genocide even, in tribal societies, but I wondered if those parochial liberals at gather did. And if so, do they know how rape can be used as a weapon of genocide?

It is necessary here to first understand that “they” i.e. the majority of cultures and societies outside western Europe and north America are nothing like us. A minory of elite intellectuals and wealthy business people might have adopted the politically correct mores of the west but generally despite the coming of technology these societies have changed little in a thousand years.

I can almost hear those liberals wailing and gnashing their teeth all the way across the Atlantic, they are crying “Oh no, that horrible Ian Thorpe cannot criticize Africans, Africans are nice, Africans are good, our beloved President is an African.”

(To which we would be justified in asking, “If Obama is an African what’s he doing in The White House?” but we’ll let that one pass for now.)

The first thing to understand is there is no African race as such. The Arabs and Moors in the north and the negros in the south might have dark skin but that is about all they have in common. The African continent is the most racist and racially divided place on this planet.

African nations are mash ups of ancient tribal societies and cultures. I’ll explain the significance of that of that later but first here’s some evidence that it is going on.

This report finds that rape and other forms of sexual violence in Darfur are being used as a weapon of war in order to humiliate, punish, control, inflict fear and displace women and their communities. These rapes and other sexual violence constitute grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. The report also examines the consequences of rape which have immediate and long-term effects on women beyond the actual physical violence. (also: Rape as a weapon in Sudan – Amnesty International)

War rape has a history as long as the practice of war itself. Rape that occurred in war zones was seen as a by-product of wartime activity, collateral damage or as spoils of war for a long time and was not considered as a violation of humanitarian law (2) or as a war strategy.(3) The change in policy happened with the Rwanda Tribunals, which prosecuted rape as a component of the conflict in the region and as a crime against humanity that served the goals of genocide. A big shift in thinking about rape happened. Thinking that rape is simply the âby-productâ of war was changed with the recognition that rape is actually a planned and targeted policy. Rape became recognised as a weapon of war. It was acknowledged that war enemies tried to achieve political objectives such as ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the occupation of enemy territory by targeting women of the opposite side or other ethnicity.(4) âRape as a weapon of warâ is still not a legal term concept, but has at least taken on legal significance due to the work of the Rwanda Tribunals.

Women’s bodies have become part of the terrain of conflict, according to a new report by Amnesty International.

Rape and sexual abuse are not just a by-product of war but are used as a deliberate military strategy, it says.

The opportunistic rape and pillage of previous centuries has been replaced in modern conflict by rape used as an orchestrated combat tool.

And while Amnesty cites ongoing conflicts in Colombia, Iraq, Sudan, Chechnya, Nepal and Afghanistan, the use of rape as a weapon of war goes back much further …

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But rape as genocide, how does that work?

It’s a little bit more subtle and a whole lot more cruel than gunning people down or disembowelling victims.

I have written here many times before that those “liberals” who are always wailing and gnashing teeth about the suffering of people in third world basket case tyrannies really do not have a clue how things work in these places. One of the most frequent complaints levelled by Africans at American and European guilt tourists is those do gooders glibly assume Africans yearn to live in societies modelled on those of America or Europe’s most advanced nations.

In reality we do not have a clue how the mindset of people who have always lived in rigid tribal societies sees the world but basically they despise us for our selfishness greed and lack of values. I don’t agree with them but respect their right to their opinion.

One of the big things in the life of a tribesman or woman (and remember we are talking about a huge majority of the people in the world) is their status asÂ a member of their tribe or caste. Many books have been written on that so I’ll just leave it there for people to research if they wish. Lose your status in the tribe and you’re nobody, there is no way back.

Sexist, racist and primitive as it may seem, one of the things that gives a woman status is her virtue. Conventions vary in different tribes but almost universally if a woman is not a virgin she’s pretty much done for, and if she is penetrated by a man who is not a member of her tribe she might as well be dead.

This stems from a totally nonsensical but very powerful belief (that as recently as fifty years ago had not been completely eradicated in the west) that something of the essence of a man remains in any woman he has sex with. Children borne by a woman who had not been exclusive to her hubby were ‘tainted’ by her other lovers’ seed. And in tribal societies if a woman has been raped by a member of another tribe her children can never be full tribe members or belong to a caste. They are outcastes as is their mother whose only means of supporting herself will be either prostitution or begging.

No man would marry her of course, who would want his children to be excluded from the tribe. And so those women who are raped in a tribal war are effectively removed from the breeding stock. Rape enough young women and the enemy tribes ability to reproduce is seriously compromised.

Now I an not saying we should hate Africans, my view is that if they organise their societies in ways I can’t tolerate I will not go there but I will respect their right to live that way. We in the west cannot feed all those who do not get an adequate diet and most of the money we send to feed the hungry in famine zones ends up in the offshore bank accounts of tyrants and their corrupt officials.

We cannot eradicate all disease and we cannot force our way of life on people who have chosen to live differently. To try to do so is a form of colonization. And isn’t the evil of colonialism one of the things progressives find most abhorrent about the history of the west’s dealings with third world nations?

I have always been a non interventionist. When I said we should not invade Iraq because the country would fragment into a tribal society, a lawless failed state, I was accused of supporting the brutal tyrant Saddam. When I said we should not bring down Gadaffi because it would destroy Libya and open the way for Islamist groups to gain control of mineral resources in Mali, Chad and Niger that are vital to western economic interests I was scoffed at and called a right wing nut job. Libya is now a failed state and the weapons used in Al Qaeda’s attempts to gain control of Mali and the Algerian hostage crisis were smuggled through Libya’s southern border. I was called inhuamane when I said we should leave Assad to crush the uprising but instead of a few hundred dissidents being killed, that’s to the west’s arming the rebels via Turkey, an estimated 20,000 have died.

It is always folly to meddle in things we don’t understand and we do not understand foreign societies any more than they understand ours.